Health Benefits of Juicing

August 24, 2010 — organicmel

Juicing is an easy way to provide yourself with a high level of quality nutrition. Here I will talk about the properties of juicing that makes it so potent, and the health benefits that it can provide. It is a practice taken up by many people who are health conscious, who claim how great it is. So what is it about juicing we all rave about?Well, there are 3 main reasons why juicing is so beneficial :

The juice requires hardly any digestion, so all its nutritional goodness gets rapidly into your system.

When you juice, you use more fruits and vegetables than you could actually eat. As a result, you are drinking a densely packed amount of vitamins, minerals and other plant-based nutrients.

Liver detoxification

Below are some of the many health benefits of juicing :

Improving the cardiovascular system and heart health:

Both antioxidant vitamins C and E prevent the damaging effect of free radicals on artery walls. They prevent blood from sticking, clotting, becoming toxic as well as helping to lower triglycerides levels (Here is more info about how to lower triglycerides). Good to great levels of vitamin C can be found in most vegetables and fruits. For the health benefits of juicing vitamin E you can use blackberries, kiwi, asparagus and spinach in your juicer recipes.

Potassium and magnesium are essential for proper heart function and a regular heart beat. Blackberries are a good source for both these minerals.

Additionally, as we know, being overweight plays a fundamental role in developing heart disease, so its good to take some common sense and a realistic approach on how to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight.

Detoxifying the liver – this is fundamental for good health:

The liver has 100′s of important functions. One of its main functions is to clean the blood and remove toxins and metabolic waste. With the amount of toxins we are dealing with everyday in modern life we need to be real diligent in helping to keep it “clean” so it can keep us clean!

Certain nutrients are needed to provide the juicing benefits of liver cleansing. Antioxidants beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, and N-acetyl cysteine are potent liver cleansers. In addition, B-vitamins riboflavin and niacin also aid liver cleansing. Cabbage, brussel sprouts and cauliflower have been found to be great for the liver.

You can also add milk thistle supplements to your diet to help the liver detoxify.

Alkalizing your system (vegetable juicer recipes only):

All vegetables are alkalizing. Fruits on the other hand are not; they are mostly acidic in nature.

The benefits of making your body PH level less acidic is a subject of its own, so here are just a few juicing benefits;

Improved brain function

Improved heart function

Slowing down the aging process

Improved joint function – helping with arthritis

Better digestion

Helping with healthy skin, hair, nails and eyes:

The antioxidants vitamins C and E help to prevent skin damage from sun exposure, due to their free radical neutralizing abilities. The health benefits of juicing blackberries and blueberries together will provide you with a good source of vitamins C and E.

The most potent nutrient for healthy eyes is vitamin A, which is not found in plants. Its precursor, beta-carotene, is found in abundance in orange colored fruits and vegetables. Beta-carotene is turned into vitamin A by the body. This vitamin is essential for the retina to function properly and prevent night blindness. Both vitamins A and C reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and cataracts. Carrot juice is a very good source for both of these vitamins.

Increased energy levels:

This one is pretty simple. Lots of juicing means lots more vitamins and minerals which are responsible for all sorts of necessary chemical reactions promoting health and vitality and therefore lots more energy. Enjoy juicer recipes every day!!

Rebuild blood cells:

Yes that’s right!

This is made possible by the incredibly healthy chlorophyll, which would need an article of its own to give justice to its health benefits!

On a molecular level chlorophyll looks almost exactly like a component of the red blood cell hemin. More amazingly scientists have found that when you assimilate chlorophyll into the body, it makes the chemical shift and actually becomes hemin. Essentially, taking chlorophyll is almost like getting a blood transfusion!

Chlorophyll is also a pigment that gives plants their green color. So put the green stuff in your juicer recipes! The darker the green, the more chlorophyll it contains.

Improved immune system:

Drinking juicer recipes regularly is going to give you a wide variety and more than adequate amount of antioxidants which are essential for a healthy immune system. The antioxidants from fruits and vegetables include vitamins A, C, E, plus a wide range of plant chemicals called phytochemicals. Phytochemicals have amazing and varied health benefits, most notably anti-cancer properties.

Drinking freshly made vegetable juices on a regular basis is one of the best things you can do to promote your own health and well being. Although fruit juices are also great for health, they are a wonderful source of antioxidants, vitamins and other nutrients, they are also high in sugar. For this reason it is a good idea to make the majority of your juices from vegetables, which are much less sugary than fruits. So what are the wonderful health benefits of juicing vegetables?

Alkalinity

Fresh vegetables juices are among the most alkaline of all food sources and can help to bring our bodies back from the modern epidemic of acidity. Sugar, most sugar substitutes, sodas, commercial processed fruit juices, meat, fish, seafood, cheese, grains and most prepackaged/processed foods are all acidic forming in the body. So it is no wonder that most of us have a body and blood PH that is too acidic. The actually ideal PH levels is neutral to slightly alkaline 7 – 7.5Ph.A body that is too acidic is susceptible to a whole host of health problem. Acid reflux, heartburn, gout, poor skin quality are all possible symptoms of over acidity. Because disease also grows faster in acidic environments and over acidic body PH is now being linked to an increased risk of cancer and heart disease and also the development of bacterial disorders and fungus such as candida albicans.

So drinking a fresh vegetable juice every day is worth its weight in gold just because of its high alkaline PH level and how much that can help us ward off the health issues of over acidity.

The Health Benefits of Chlorophyll

When we talk about the health benefits of chlorophyll we are referring to the health benefits of green vegetables only and not vegetables of other colors. Chlorophyll is actually the plant pigment that puts the wonderful green color into plants, trees and vegetables. So if you are drinking a healthy green juice recipe you know you are providing yourself with a rich concentration of chlorophyll. The darker the green the better. So dark leafy greens like spinach and kale and also wheat grass are among the best food sources of chlorophyll.Chlorophyll is essentially the ‘blood of plants’ and amazingly the chemical structure of chlorophyll is almost identical to that of a component of our own red blood cells called hemin. There is actually only one tiny difference. Chlorophyll has a magnesium atom at its center and hemin has an iron atom at its center. The good news is that when we eat or drink sources of chlorophyll our own digestive system turns the chlorophyll 100% into hemin! In other words, the chlorophyll has been turned into red blood cells. So chlorophyll is great for helping to improve our red blood cell count. If we mix beet juice with our green juices then we can increase our benefit further because beet juice is a great source of iron.